Richfield High serves up healthy concessions

RICHFIELD, Minn. - Nothing hits the spot for bench warming like belly bombs from the concession stand, but on Tuesday night at the boys basketball game at Richfield High School the idea was to lessen the load.

"Those kids that come to the games on a regular basis are used to candy, chips, pop and hot dogs and walking tacos. All of a sudden its apples, oranges, apple sauce and pretzels," Laurie Palmer-Stark said from the concession stand she was running at the game.

Yes, the menu was swapped out by Do-Town, a project of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota. The idea, given only healthy options, folks will opt in.

"They are going from practice to game to lesson and sometimes dinner is at the concession stand. We are making sure the healthy choice is the easy choice," Do-Town project manager for BC/BC MN Katherine Bass said.

While a few grimaced at first glance and garbled for concessions of old, they caved to the pressure and ate right on this night.

"I got carrots and pretzels with hummus. Never got that at a concession stand so that's a plus," one game attendee said.

Even when kids came asking for a Pepsi only to learn that sugary well had gone dry, they didn't just go away.They bought the all-fruit smoothie.

"She said she liked it, that it was really good," Palmer-Stark said of the teen that left smiling with a strawberry smoothie.

The hummus was a harder sell, as was the turkey sandwiches, but fruit and applesauce were pleasing to most even if visions of dietary disasters were dancing in their heads.

Bass says this is the third time they have tried healthy concessions at a high school event.

Do-Town has been going as a project in three communities so far; Edina, Bloomington and Richfield.

In addition to trying the healthy concessions, the cities have worked with BCBC MN on all kinds of get healthy projects like better parks, biking and walking trails and better food options in the workplace and at school.

Bass said she hopes healthy concessions can continue this year in some of the schools.